Although Estevan has received more than its fair share of snow this winter, getting rid of the white stuff is not having a huge impact on the City's finances.
In a recent interview with The Mercury, City manager Jim Puffalt said despite the above average snowfall, he believes the City is still within its budgeted amount for snow removal although he was awaiting an exact figure on how much of the $480,000 had been spent as of last week.
"We haven't been working a lot of overtime, we have been trying to get our work done during normal working hours," said Puffalt. "That generally allows us to use the budget very well so I think we are probably fine."
Puffalt said the City budgets for two major snowfalls per budget cycle. The City considers a major snowfall as a time when it is forced to expend a great deal of resources and work 12-hour days to get traffic moving.
Asked if has been happy with how the City has handled snow removal this winter, Puffalt admitted he would have liked to get into the residential areas sooner but noted the delay was due to circumstances beyond their control.
"Just that little bit of snow that kept on coming meant that we had to keep going back to the collector streets and arterials and couldn't really focus in on the residential so that took a little longer than we would have liked," he said.
"Once the snow stopped, we were able to get the residential areas done fairly quickly."
With spring just around the corner, Puffalt said the City's focus is beginning to shift to what happens when all this snow melts.
He noted they have sent out a number of letters to property owners asking them to stop pushing snow off their land into City ditches which in turn blocks important drainage courses.
"We don't want water backing up. We have been spending time cleaning out ditches and culverts and in fact this week we had three to four major ones done," Puffalt said.
"I think we are in decent shape for the major drainage courses that run through the city. It's more the localized drainage ditches that are being filled in by property owners so we have asked them (to remove the snow) and have gotten really good co-operation."
Puffalt said the situation around the city would be helped greatly if the snow melts over an extended period of time as opposed to a quick melt if the temperature rises suddenly.
